1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a peer-to-peer connection between terminals, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for reconfiguring a group of terminals that perform communication through the peer-to-peer connection.
2. Description of the Related Art
An infrastructure mode and an ad-hoc mode are defined in a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) defined in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard. In the ad-hoc mode, a plurality of 802.11 radio stations perform direct communication without having to use an access point or other wired network connection. Accordingly, and the ad-hoc mode is a type of a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) mode. The ad-hoc mode is useful because a wireless network can be promptly and easily configured in an environment where a wireless infrastructure does not exist. However, the ad-hoc mode has problems in that a supported data rate is limited to 11 Mbps, security is limited, and power saving is difficult.
A P2P mode, i.e., a direct mode, including a group owner terminal and a general member terminal has recently been proposed. In the direct mode, a terminal that desires to perform a P2P operation first performs a P2P discovery procedure to search for at least one neighboring P2P terminal and then establishes a P2P network by performing a P2P group owner negotiation procedure and a channel negotiation procedure with respect to the at least one found neighboring P2P terminal. Therefore, a plurality of P2P terminals can communicate with each other by using a terminal determined as a group owner.
However, when a plurality of P2P terminals communicate with each other by establishing a P2P network using a terminal determined as the group owner, as described above, if the group owner terminal is disassociated, e.g., due to movement or a power off, a procedure of re-negotiating the group owner has to be performed among the remaining general member terminals. Accordingly, it is inconvenient and time-consuming to re-establish the P2P network among the remaining general member terminals.